


Reflection

by GlyphArchive



Category: Mahabharata - Vyasa
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23875849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlyphArchive/pseuds/GlyphArchive
Summary: Perhaps they weren’t ever meant to really be friends; but good memories remain alongside the bad.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Reflection

There are children enough in his father’s care that Ashwatthama doesn’t feel lonely. The opposite, really, when he is among them. A hundred princes seems too much for any kingdom, even one as huge as Hastinapur. He does not say anything directly to his father, however. Drona smiles more often, looks less harried, their family has more to eat and drink than ever before. Hastinapur is generous to those in it’s service and Ashwatthama can weather the complaints of a hundred spoiled children if it means not watching his father shrink in despair.

He hardly notices when five more join the lot, save for the unusual circumstances that brings the Pandavas to his father’s ashram. Pandu had been little more than a myth, disappeared to some mountain with his curse and his two wives. Now the only surviving wife had emerged with five sons in tow, asking they be allowed to join their Kuru cousins in Drona’s tutelage. Looking at them, he thinks he can manage a sort of understanding for their plight. Kunti, once a princess and then a Queen, still wears the humble garb of a forest-dweller. Her boys, each incredibly different from the other with the exception of the twins, wear the same.

Yudhisthira already has the same grim kind of look about him that Ashwatthama sees in his own father when Drona argues about philosophy. The eldest Pandav holds himself too still and upright for Ashwatthama’s liking. Bhima stands belly, shoulders and head above the other children; already sizing each of them up for future consideration. He’ll only get taller, Ashwatthama suspects, and might prove a decent wrestler if nothing else. The twins are only going to be trouble, he thinks, dressed alike and each the same height and make as the other. All he sees of the middle brother is a pair of legs at first, thin and dark as his own; then a head of short, curly hair when Arjuna finally leans forward to be seen around Bhima’s stature.

He’s a scrawny little thing, none of his brothers’ obvious quirks to set him aside from anyone else. Ashwatthama sighs through his nose, disappointed and ready to get back to practice now that excitement had run its course through everyone. His father is already nodding, ushering the boys to join their fellows and each of them seems reluctant to part from the other.

Arjuna glances his way and their eyes meet. Ashwatthama doesn’t smile, doesn’t nod, but something darts across the other’s face before it’s wiped away.

They’re close enough in age, he supposes. Perhaps that is the root of whatever the other boy is feeling. It must be nice to have at least one person to match up against, compared to two elder siblings and two younger ones.

* * *

“It was Bhima.” Arjuna tells him quietly one morning, huddled in a guarded spot of shade in the ashram. Ashwatthama blinks, tries to recall if they’ve spoken without his father instigating any conversation first; and then decides he doesn’t care.

“The one who ate your breakfast.” The middle Pandav clarifies when Ashwatthama stares down at him. He toys with the cord Drona had hooked over one shoulder, the same cord that Ashwatthama and all of Drona’s students wear. Its golden color marks them as celibates, as a Brahmin’s pupils; ties them together in some distant mock-family.

“You saw him?” Ashwatthama looks around for Bhima’s hulk, but he is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he is a part of the day’s morning gatherers, or off making trouble for Duryodhana.

He’d been right in thinking Bhima an able wrestler, before. He just hadn’t known to expect Bhima so keen for tormenting his least favorite people with that skill.

“If you saw him, you could have at least said something about it.” Ashwatthama grumbles, giving up on looking for Arjuna’s brother and instead focusing on the boy himself. He’s met with a quirked brow and Arjuna’s large eyes rolling in disbelief.

“And get tossed in the river? No.” Uncurling from his slouch, Arjuna gets to his feet. Even standing straight he’s a hair too short to match Ashwatthama for height, but he tries anyway. “Don’t be late tomorrow, and he won’t have the chance to steal from you.”

Ashwatthama feels his eyes narrow, but it only lasts until something roundish and green-red is tossed at him. He catches it, smells a modest sweet fragrance, and glances at it. A mango, just ripe enough that he won’t lose teeth spitting out potential sourness. When he looks back at Arjuna there’s a faint smile on the boy’s face, tiny and smug.

“I hide them so Bhima can’t make off with the orchard.” Arjuna shrugs, reaches into a pocket to extract another. “There’s more.” He offers. “And we have time.”

“Awful nice.” Ashwatthama can’t spot anything immediately wrong with the fruit, nor does Arjuna strike him as being competent enough for poison. “What do you get out of it?”

Arjuna blinks, glancing away as though he had not thought about it before. “It is better than you falling over during practice, isn’t it?” He says at last, like that answers everything.

Ashwatthama pushes him into the river later, just for that.

* * *

“We’re supposed to be done for the day.” Ashwatthama folds his arms loosely, watching Arjuna nock another arrow. There’s barely any light left in the sky but the other boy shows no signs of stopping, or of listening for that matter. Drona had waved them all away hours ago and Ashwatthama had only wandered back to the training circle because there was nothing better to do.

The bowstring twangs and faster than he can follow the arrow buries itself into its mark. He doubts, honestly, that the straw dummy can take much more and does not look forward to reconstructing it in the future.

“I know.” Arjuna doesn’t look at him, reaching for yet another arrow. His quiver’s nearly empty and something tells Ashwatthama that he’ll just find another or yank the spent ones from the dummy’s remains before he calls it quits. That, if left alone, Arjuna will be at this all night and probably into the morning as well and not even notice.

“You could stand to work on other things.” Ashwatthama tosses the statement out to see what sort of reaction it will get. He’s not disappointed – for the first time Arjuna seems to jolt back to reality, his aim just slightly off when he fires.

It clips the dummy’s head rather than striking true and Arjuna frowns at him when he deigns to turn his head to look at him properly.

“Do I?” He says, something like a challenge in those words.

Ashwatthama smiles, shrugs, and only replies. “Archery isn’t everything.”

* * *

They get in trouble for their scuffle, later. Drona clucks his tongue disappointedly over them both, repeating the same old lecture for a thousandth time. Ashwatthama feels he came out on the better end of things, only a handful of scrapes and bruises that will quickly heal. Arjuna glowers at him briefly, lip swollen but no longer bleeding. He’ll have a black smudge around his eye in the morning, however, and looks like an indignant cat about it.

“Next time.” Arjuna warns lightly, once they’re set free and told to weed the garden as punishment for their foolery. “I will get you back.”

“Should I get you a chair?” Ashwatthama snipes back, tossing half-wilted plants into a basket. It’s dull work, but better to do it now than face his father’s temper.

That comment earns him a clump of dirt and wad of uprooted plant to the face. Even half-blind, Arjuna’s aim is still good.

* * *

“You didn’t have to do it.” The words feel like rocks in Ashwatthama’s mouth. He can see Arjuna shift in the corner of his vision, turning to face him. “Throwing yourself at the crocodile like that. You didn’t have to. It should have been me.” It had been his own father, after all, the beast had gone for. But he’d been rooted to the spot, stunned as everyone else.

And then there had been Arjuna, willing to throw himself at a creature several times his own size with no weapons at all. Only for it to all be an illusion. A test his father made and a test Ashwatthama had failed.

He almost expected a lecture. A quiet, if smug, form of I told you so.

For a moment, Arjuna says nothing.

“I was afraid.” Grass rustled as Arjuna shifted his weight. When Ashwatthama looked up, the other boy had already turned his head away. “It seemed very real and I thought Drona might die. I panicked.” His shoulders tensed, then slumped. A chuckle emerged but it held no amusement. “It was not a noble response. Nothing to be proud of. I was afraid and he is your father - I did not want you to lose him in such a way.”

Of all the things Ashwatthama might have expected, it had not been that. But, he supposed, the loss of King Pandu must have hit the Pandavas hard. The twins were still boys, not even old enough to be allowed on the battlefield. Arjuna was only a year or so older, two at the most.

“And that’s it?” Ashwatthama blinked. “That’s all?”

Arjuna started, turning to look at him with bemusement. “What else would you have me say? It was a decision I made in the moment, because I did not wish to see him die - or for you to witness his loss. Have I offended you by following that impulse?”

“No.” Ashwatthama mused, wrinkling his nose; looking away. “Not really.“

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever attempt at writing Ashwatthama. I'd like to write for him again, someday.


End file.
